Sultans of Swat: The Four Greatest Sluggers of the New York Yankees

Sultans of Swat: The Four Greatest Sluggers of the New York Yankees - New Hardcover Book Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle were four of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball. Ruth and Gehrig were New York Yankee teammates in the 1920s and '30s; DiMaggio played with Gehrig in the late '30s, and Mantle's rookie season with the Yanks, 1951, was DiMaggio's last. This volume uses sports reporting--game accounts, features, sidebars, photographs, and box scores--to re-create the four sluggers' careers. Included is the story of Mantle's regular season Yankee debut as well as an account of DiMaggio's last home run. There are pieces about Gehrig's tragic battle with the neurological disease that now bears his name, and there's a box score from the 1927 game in which Ruth hit his then-record sixtieth home run. A side benefit is the display of how sports journalism has evolved from the breathless hyperbole of the '20s to the more objective contemporary style. To peruse these pages is to hop aboard a baseball time machine and experience the highlights of four great careers much as fans did at the time. Great fun.